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lilacmoon83 · 4 years

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Finding You Always

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Chapter 206: The Brightest Star in the Sky

The young man sighed, as he trekked after his determined cousin. They were about the same age, but decidedly had very different interests. As always though, he tagged along to make sure she didn't get into too much trouble at these conventions.

His cousin Nora loved anything considered weird, paranormal, or of a conspiracy nature. So seven years ago, when that crazy storm had happened in Seattle, his cousin had been enthralled from that moment and ever since she had been exploring every single aspect of that day.

She did have a point. Even he, like most, suspected that the official story the Feds fed the public about that day was garbage. But he, like most, didn't really know what to do about it so they moved on with their lives. But not Nora and she had gotten into some trouble early on in her days of spelunking in the woods of Maine and into fights at the conventions. So here he was again, tagging along to another conspiracy convention in Misty Falls, Maine and bored out of his mind.

"If you don't want to be here, JJ...then you can leave. I'll be fine," Nora told him. He rolled his eyes.

"It's just...some of these guys are in this for the cash grab now. I mean...what new or real information have they come up with in the last seven years?" JJ questioned. She sighed.

"You don't get it...there are no definitive answers, because the government is hiding the whole thing. But you've heard the stories. Weird things happen in these woods," Nora said.

"Maybe that's because this convention brings the weirdos out of the woodwork," he quipped.

"So...are you still on the fairy tale kick or do you think it's aliens?" he asked.

"If you're going to make fun of me, you can take a hike," she answered. He sighed.

"I'm sorry...but you have to admit, most of the theories are pretty insane," he mentioned.

"You saw the videos...how do you explain all that?" she asked.

"I don't know...but fairy tales? Really?" he questioned.

"Whatever...you just wait until I prove you wrong," she insisted, as they arrived at the convention tables, where they were conducting a live podcast.

"And if you're just joining us, I have made contact with a source that has a possible lead on the man known as David Nolan. Now, if you remember, David Nolan is the detective from Seattle that curiously had his wife and son stolen from him by a man, who was known on the dark web as the Collector. His wife had amnesia and was diagnosed by a shady doctor with dissociative identity disorder. The woman had an alter and yes, you're remembering correctly. Her alter was none other than Snow White," the podcaster said.

"This couple was splashed all over the tabloids for weeks and their romance became an obsession; an obsession that the Internet still hasn't let go of. Especially when this same couple showed up on that fateful day in Seattle and things happened around them that can only be described as magic, no matter what the official government story tries to tell us," he continued.

"But then they disappeared, without a trace, like they never existed. But if the rumors on the dark web are anything to go by...then they are somewhere hidden in these very back woods of Maine, possibly in a hidden realm or maybe even beneath the surface of the earth if you believe the hallow earth theorists," he added.

"But no matter how much they try to dissuade us from seeking the truth, we will not stop until we expose what really happened that day and just who these mysterious people really are. Join us again tomorrow, as we make our annual hike into the woods of Maine in search for answers," he said, concluding his podcast. JJ rolled his eyes, as Nora got in line to get an autograph from the man who had made a living with podcasts and books on this subject.

"I'm gonna go check us in at the Inn and if it's booked again like last year, we're leaving, cause I'm not sleeping in a tent again," he complained, as he started off that way when screams from the diner nearby attracted all the attention. And if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have never believed it.

The diner exploded in flames, with any of the poor people inside, obviously perishing instantly. He stood, fear stricken, as two flaming figures strode toward them.

"You…" one said, as the flames faded mostly.

"You will drive us to a place called Boston," Arthur demanded.

"Uh...here, take the car," JJ said, but Gawain growled and grabbed Nora by the arm.

"The King has requested that you drive us and you will do so unless you'd like me to melt the skin off her body," Gawain threatened. JJ nodded, as he led them back to his car. Suddenly, all the conspiracy had just gotten very real…

~*~

David stood behind his boss with a few other agents, as she made a statement to the press and delivered the profile, stating that they believed their perpetrator to be a highly educated professor with access to multiple Universities campuses.

"Major Donovan...are you really accusing someone in the educational community of perpetuating these crimes?" one reporter questioned.

"As uncomfortable as it is...I'm afraid so. The chemical compound alone suggests that this person is at least a scientist and someone highly intelligent. But the location of the crimes is very suspicious as well. Only an educator would have the kind of access that to the multiple institutions that these crimes occurred," Patricia answered.

"They're cannot be that many that fit your profile. Does that mean you've narrowed the suspect pool?" another asked.

"Yes...we are getting close and we are doing everything in our power to make sure the last victim is this person's final victim," the Major answered, as she stepped away, effectively ending the impromptu press conference. But one person, without a press pass, slipped through and ran up behind them.

"Agent Nolan is it?" he asked. David sighed and turned to him. He hated reporters.

"Make it quick...I really do want to catch this guy," he said impatiently.

"No one else has seemed to put it together, but rumors in the alternative community have suggested that you are the same person as the Detective Nolan from strange events that occurred seven years ago in Seattle," the man interjected.

"I'm sorry...what media outlet are you with?" Patricia asked.

"I'm an independent researcher for the people, Major," he answered.

"Ah...so one of those nuts on the Internet. Got it...if you'll excuse us, we have work to do," she said, dismissing him.

"I've done some digging. Your wife, Margaret Nolan, she's a teacher, right?" he called and David stopped in his tracks.

"Look...I don't know who you are, but I've never lived in Seattle and I'll let you go right now if you go without another word. But you mention my wife again or even think about going near her...then we'll arrest you for harassment," David warned. The man smirked.

"Fine...but pictures don't lie, detective. Oh, I'm sorry...it's agent now," he said, as he tossed the newspaper to him and walked away. David sighed and followed his boss back into their workplace. He was about to look at the paper out of curiosity, but tossed it on his desk when Agent Harding called them into the conference room.

"Hey...I think I might have narrowed it down now," she said, as they both went into the conference room.

"Really?" David asked.

"Well...we caught a break. Our perp has been careful up until now, but after the last student death at Boston University, they put even more cameras," Danielle replied.

"Wait...are you saying you got something on camera?" David asked.

"Well, nothing incriminating, but I went through and cross referenced everyone that was signed into the lab at Boston University on both nights of each murder that occurred there," she replied.

"Nice work...how many are we down to?" Patricia asked.

"Eight...so still not great, but way better than the thirty-two suspects we had it down to this morning," she replied.

"Okay...well eight is workable. Let's see them one by one," Patricia said, as she nodded to Trevor and he put the slide show up on the screen. And David's heart nearly stopped, as he recognized the photo of the sixth man on the screen. As the slide flipped to the seventh one, he called out.

"Hold it...go back!" he said, as he stared a the image of Dr. Ian Jenkins.

"David? Do you know him?" Patricia asked, as his mind was racing a mile a minute and he remembered what, at the time, had been a fairly innocuous conversation with his wife.

~*~

They had taken the kids out for pizza after the game so Bobby could eat with his teammates. They were so glad he finally seemed to be fitting in. Middle school had been an awkward time for him and he had always said he felt different than other kids and had trouble relating to them, but he was never really sure why. Snow and David were fond of telling him that it was because he was special, but they weren't sure that helped much. At his age, being special was definitely not easy. It wasn't easy to be normal at his age, so being extraordinary or special came with its own struggles. But his teammates really seemed to take to him. They both just hoped there was more to it than the fact that Bobby was winning games for them.

After pizza, they had stopped for ice cream and she was currently sharing a pint with her husband on the couch. In his lap no less, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for them.

"You're a little quiet...lost in the chocolate goodness?" he teased, as she looked him.

"No...it's kind of silly I think," she replied.

"Your feelings are never silly to me," he reminded, as she put her spoon in the ice cream and set it aside on the table.

"Well...my new boss, Dr. Jenkins...he's nice and all and I kind of feel bad for him. He's socially awkward...but I kind of got a weird vibe from him today," she said.

"Did he come onto you?" he asked.

"No...why would you think that?" she asked. He rolled his eyes.

"Because you're beautiful and I saw the way he was looking at you. I may have acted like I was absorbed in the game, but trust me, I always notice everything when it comes to you, especially when other men look at you," he replied. She caressed his face.

"You're the only man I want," she reminded him.

"I know...that's why I don't gouge their eyes out when I see one looking at you. That's serious self control...you should be proud," he joked, as she nudged him playfully.

"But seriously...was he making you uncomfortable?" he asked.

"No...not really. He just was weirdly insistent that I should enroll in his night classes and get my doctorate," she replied.

"Do you want to get your doctorate?" he asked.

"No...I'm happy where I am. Besides, spending my evenings away from you and the kids would only make me miserable," she replied.

"Then he should accept that and if he gets out of hand, I want you to let me know right away," he stressed. She shrugged.

"I don't think it's like that. I think he's just lonely and is trying to be a friend," she said.

"Maybe...but remember, I'm a cop. I see this kind of thing go bad way too often and it scares the hell out of me that you could be on the receiving end of someone that doesn't like to hear the word no," he lamented. But she stroked his face.

"I'll be fine. Like I said, he's just awkward and hasn't crossed any lines. I'll be friendly, but keep a professional distance," she promised, as she kissed him.

"Good...because I don't think I have to tell you what it would do to me if something happened to you," he said, as she caressed his face again.

"I know...it's the same for me when it comes to you. I love you," she said.

"I love you too," he replied, as their lips met again.

~*~

"David?" Patricia questioned, as she noticed his fear stricken face.

"I know him…" he uttered.

"How?" Danielle asked.

"He works at the same school Margaret and Bobby are at. He's the head of the science department," David answered, as Trevor pulled up his information.

"Dr. Ian Jenkins, five PHD's and moved to the United States from Great Britain a few years ago," Danielle said, as dread knotted in David's stomach and he ran out of the room and to the stairwell.

"Pull up everything you can get on him, from his time here and his home country. I have a feeling this is our guy," she said, as she followed him.

~*~

Mount Olympus practically shook apart to rubble, as Seth unleashed his rage at what was going on in the United Realms at the moment. There was a heavy ice storm plaguing several Kingdoms and a lightning storm over Storybrooke. If that wasn't enough, there were also several cyclones raging in the waterways, creating violent hurricane-like winds. He had told Mephisto not to bother returning unless it was with the Charmings in chains.

"I'm going to torture you all...and burn everything and everyone you love!" Seth raged, as his eyes bled yellow with evil and he glared down at the United Realms. In his mighty rage, he blasted Snow and David's castle in Misthaven and then Winter and Charming's near the toll bridge, torching them both. He knew they were likely empty by now, as these storms were clearly a distraction. He glared at the reserve and then the mysterious area near Bald Mountain. Even in all his immense power, he was unable to get through the shields protecting these areas and it made him livid in a way he had never been.

"I must find a way through…" he growled, as he disappeared and reappeared in Nephilim. He needed to consult Madam Mim's oldest spell books. There had to be something in one of them to combat the power of these truest loves. He had little faith in Mephisto's new charges and thus, he knew it was very likely that Winter and Charming's good halves would soon return. Which meant he needed a way to obliterate them and their entire bloodline…

~*~

Thanks to their abundance of beans, multiple portals opened with people pouring through them. Due to the nature of the barrier, created by the combined light and dark powers of Winter, Charming, and Rumpelstiltskin, it made the barrier around the Bald Mountain area nearly impenetrable, even by the mighty Seth. Another perk of the magic woven into the barrier was that anyone that walked into the refuge of the mountain through a portal had their real memories returned. Emotions were running high, especially, as many people were reunited with loved ones thought to be dead, including Abigail with her father.

"That should be mostly everyone that we could get," Leo said, as he arrived with Frankie and Joe, having retrieved them and most of the people of Storybrooke.

"Yes and it shouldn't be too crowded, thanks to the magical extensions," Regina agreed, as they arrived back from the Maritime Kingdom.

"Where is Eva...this is taking too long…" Charming said, as he paced a hole in the floor. Thankfully, a portal opened, as she and Paul arrived back from the Land Without Color and its people.

"I'm here Daddy…" she called, as he hugged her tightly and cradled her head.

"I'm okay, Daddy," she assured and then pulled back.

"I hope everyone is mostly here though. He destroyed your castle in Misthaven and the one by the Toll Bridge," she reported.

"We're safe...that's what matters most, sweetie," Winter said. He nodded.

"She's right, angel...we can rebuild when all this is over," Charming assured.

"So what now? As usual, you've built a resistance and led us all here. But Seth is worse than I ever was...so you two better have a plan," the Evil Queen asked said, as she stood beside her other half.

"Emma will bring our other halves back, along with Summer and Bobby. Until then...we ready ourselves for the battle to come," Winter declared.

"She's right...because this one is going to make the Final Battle look like a casual afternoon sparring match," Charming said.

"We've lost Fandral too...that was not a blow we needed," Elsa mentioned.

"We must hope that his friends got our message and were able to rescue them," Hermes implored and they could only hope she was right.

"Let's hope the barrier holds long enough, because Seth will do everything he can to get through that barrier," Winter whispered to her husband and he pulled her into his arms.

"It will...and Emma will be back soon," he promised.

~*~

"...and that was how we ended up in the All World River," Fandral said, as he got choked up again.

"And I almost lost the best thing that ever happened to me," he said, as he clutched her hand and Rose rested her head on his shoulder. She was cuddled against him in a large chair, as they had opted to share and no one bothered to tell them they could have their own. At the moment, he could bare to let her out of his sight or even let go of her. He was too afraid that she would disappear.

"By Odin's beard...there is really a serum that can separate a person from their good half and their bad half?" Lady Sif asked. They nodded.

"There is...it was originally created by Dr. Jekyll to separate himself from Hyde," Fandral asked.

"They are the ones in the story when you were cursed to be bear? This Jekyll is the one that tried to keep you apart, yes?" Thor asked. Rose nodded.

"He did...he separated from Hyde, but it turned out that he was the real monster all along and Hyde, though he has done some terrible things, he retained a goodness in him. He helped reunite us...despite his feelings for me," she explained.

"And your friends? Their dark halves...they don't seem all that dark," Valkyrie observed.

"They're not...they have done dark things in the name of revenge, but ultimately, like Snow and David, they still love each other and their family. They're just a little more willing to go to dark places to protect them, whereas Snow and David do so from a place of light," Fandral tried to explain.

"And your friends good halves are cursed again?" Sif asked, trying to understand.

"Yes...to protect their youngest. Seth fears his powers, which I have feeling he hasn't even begun to come into. But their eldest has gone after them in hopes of waking them up and bringing them home. The final battle with Seth draws near," Fandral answered.

"And I thought our lives were insane," Valkyrie quipped. Fandral sighed.

"We must get back to the children…" Fandral said.

"They are safe...I know our friends would make sure of that," Rose assured him. He nodded.

"If you are sure of that, perhaps it is wise to remain here until the right time to make your entrance," Thor suggested.

"That is a good idea. We just have no idea how to know when the right time will be," Fandral said. Thor exchanged a glance with Valkyrie and she rolled her eyes.

"If anyone has any kind of tech that can see across realms, it's probably one of them. It's one hell of a long shot though," she mentioned.

"We should try...I'll make the call," he said, as he stood up.

"So...he doesn't look so good. I feel badly for asking for his help," Fandral said, but Sif shook her head.

"No...this is exactly what he needs. It's been two years here too since the snap and he's been drowning himself in his own sorrows," Sif replied.

"She's right...you seem to be someone that's able to do what none of us can and that's pull him out of his misery. He feels he has no purpose now so do not feel bad about giving him one," Valkyrie admonished. Fandral nodded and Rose kissed his cheek.

"So...who is he calling?" Fandral asked curiously.

"Someone with a really big brain," Valkyrie answered.

~*~

Margaret arrived back in her classroom and started gathering her things to go home for the day. As she put things away in her bag, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and jumped when she saw Dr. Jenkins standing in the doorway.

"Oh...Dr. Jenkins, you startled me," she said, with a quiver in her voice. The way he was looking at her made her very uncomfortable and warning bells started going off in her head.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry...I don't mean to. I just wanted to thank you again for all your help. Today was quite successful, thanks to you. We made quite a team," he mentioned. She swallowed thickly and grabbed her bag in order to make a quick escape. Unfortunately, the contents of the bag went spilling to the floor instead.

"Oh dear...let me help you," he said, as he started picking her things up.

"That's okay…" she said, as she quickly stuffed things into her bag and stood up.

"I...I need to go. Bobby's waiting for me," she said, as she walked past him and fear seized her when he grabbed her arm.

"Margaret please...I think it is important that we talk," he said.

"Doctor…" she started to say.

"Margaret...please hear me out," he pleaded. He wasn't giving her much choice though, as he did not let go of her arm.

"I've never met anyone like you. Brilliant and beautiful, with a kind soul. I don't connect with many people, but I felt an instant connection with you. Can you not see that we belong together?" he asked.

"Doctor...I'm married. Happily married and very much in love with my husband. Please...let go," she pleaded, as she was now on the verge of tears. But that only made him squeeze her arm harder.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that...and you'll soon see that you belong with me," Jenkins he said in a matter of fact tone. She tore away from him, but he grabbed her and pulled her back.

"Help me!" she cried out, as he put a hand over her mouth. She bit his hand and he cried out. He backhanded her across the face and she went spilling to the floor.

"This is not how I wanted to do this, Margaret...but you leave me no choice," he said, as he pinned her on her back. She cried and screamed, but the school was mostly empty by now and those that were still around were in the gym.

"Shh...stop your struggle," he chided, as he put the scarf she was wearing around her neck between her teeth, as tears streamed down her face. She couldn't believe his strength. He didn't look all that strong, but his grip was like a vice and her struggling didn't faze him at all. She winced away in disgust, as he caressed her face.

"The moment I met you...I knew I had to have you," he leered and she tried kneeing him, but he held her knees down.

"You are so fiery...it's exhilarating, but this will help calm you," he said, as he pulled a syringe out of his jacket pocket.

"A simple muscle relaxer. You'll remain awake...but unable to fight me," he said. Her eyes widened and she continued to struggle. Just as she thought the worst was about to happen, she saw the doctor be literally peeled off her and thrown...across the room. Her son stood there, looking at his arm in surprise, wondering how he had even done such a thing, but decided that was a question for later, as he helped his mother up and into a chair.

"Mom…" he said, as he helped her pull the scarf away from her mouth and her arms flew around him.

"It's okay Mom…" he soothed, as he looked back at the doctor and put his hand up.

"You stay away...you stay the hell away from my mom!" Bobby hissed, as Jenkins started toward them.

"You won't stand in my way once I make a guinea pig out of you for my new drug. You're strong...maybe you'll be the first one to survive it. Either way, you won't be able to stop me from taking what I want," he said.

"Drug?" Margaret asked, as she saw the syringe with a red liquid in it.

"You're...you're the one my husband is looking for. You...you killed all those students and homeless people," she realized. He smirked at her with admiration.

"As usual...you are stunningly brilliant, Margaret. Such is wasted on your muscle brained husband. He's supposed to be an FBI agent and you figured it out before he did," he said smugly.

"Don't be so sure...I know my dad and he's probably already onto you," Bobby warned, as he guarded his mother.

"You don't want to tangle with me, brat. I don't mean to harm your lovely mother...I just need to show her why she belongs with me," he said.

"You're really are psycho if you think I'll let you touch her or that she belongs with you, because trust me, she belongs with my dad," Bobby growled.

"We shall see…" Jenkins said, as he kept walking toward them, causing Bobby to charge the man and they went tumbling to the floor.

"BOBBY!" Margaret cried, as she looked for something to use as a weapon.

Jenkins managed to get his hands around the boy's throat and started choking him, until he felt the incredible pain of being beamed with a chair across his back and rolled off, howling in pain. Margaret quickly helped her son up and looked him over.

"How dare you try to hurt my son!" she growled, all traces of her usual kindness gone.

"You are making this very difficult on yourself, Margaret. I do not want to hurt your boy...but I will if you do not come with me right now," Jenkins said.

"Go to hell," Bobby growled.

"I'm already there, young one...I'm already there without her to complete me," he claimed.

"You are sick…" Margaret spat, as he got up and she had no idea how. She had hit him with a metal chair, after all. He started toward them and Bobby punched him, before taking his mother's hand and leading her to the door. They were startled when they opened it and found a blonde woman there with a few other people. The woman smiled at them, like she was relieved, and put her hands up.

"It's okay...I'm a cop," she assured and they sighed in relief. But Margaret cried out, as Jekyll grabbed her and put his arm around her neck in a headlock, before dragging her back.

"Don't move...or I strangle her," he warned, as she gasped for air.

"Stop it!" Bobby cried.

"If I cannot have you, sweet Margaret...then no one will…" he hissed in her ear, before sniffing her hair.

"Let us leave...and she'll keep breathing," he said.

"You have four guns aimed at you four-eyed psycho so you're not going anywhere with her," Emma growled. But he smirked and pulled her tightly against him.

"But none of you will risk firing on me as long as I have her...she too precious…" he hissed, as he looked at her with a lustful stare. Suddenly, one of the windows in the classroom shattered in surprise and Jenkind looked that way, only in time to see a fist connect with his face, busting his glasses. He stumbled to the floor and Margaret sighed in relief, as her husband caught her before she went crashing to the floor with him.

"Oh David…" she cried, as her arms flew around his neck.

"It's okay now, my darling…" he promised, as he held her tightly. Emma smiled at them. Thankfully, some things never changed and that one thing was the love between her parents. It still shined as passionately and brightly like the brightest star in the sky.

"Hands up where we can see them," Nick warned, as he leveled his gun at the doctor. Jenkins smirked and jabbed the needle into Bobby's leg.

"Oww…" he cried out, as time seemed to stop.

"What...what did you just do?" David cried. The evil doctor looked at him with a smug smile.

"You know what I have done, agent Nolan...the same that I have done to all my other test subjects. I doubt the boy has but a few moments to live," Jenkins said.

"You son of a bitch!" Emma cried, as she felt tears fill her eyes and she tackled him to the ground, before cuffing him.

"Bobby…" Margaret said, as their son began to convulse.

"Oh God...no...no...no...I can't lose our baby," she cried, as she fell apart and they held their son.

"This is agent Martinez, I need an ambulance at North Star High School immediately. We have a student that was injected unwillingly with a dangerous substance!" Angela said into her phone. Bobby convulsed, as his parents held him and cried over him. Suddenly, the ground beneath them all began to shake.

"An earthquake? In Massachusetts?" Nick asked in confusion. But Emma and Killian exchanged a glance.

"Yeah...not an earthquake," she told them and their eyes widened.

"Are you saying the kid is doing this?" Nick hissed.

"That drug...it might have just awakened his powers," Emma said.

"But there is no magic," Killian reminded her.

"Yes there is...my parents have half the chalice hidden in their rings," she reminded him.

"Then...he might survive this," Killian said hopefully.

"It's possible…" she said, as the rest of the windows shattered and wind whipped around all of them.

"If my brother doesn't kill us all with the elements first," Emma said, as the paramedics arrived and were unsure as to what they were seeing. Her brother's magic was fighting the drug and he had a better chance than anyone else of surviving. But if he destroyed everything around him in the process, it was going to be something they would have a hard time explaining…

~*~

Summer arrived home that evening and was surprised to find the house seemingly empty.

"Mom?" she called.

"Hmm...they must still be at school," she muttered, as she dropped her bag in her room and went to the kitchen for a bottle of water. It was strange that her mother hadn't texted her that they would be this late though and she opened the fridge to grab an apple. She heard the doorbell ring at that time and went to answer it, finding a package on the doorstep. It was a little strange since there didn't seem to be a delivery truck. She shrugged and took it inside, surprised that it was addressed to her and her brother.

"That's weird...we didn't order anything," she said, but shrugged again and opened the box. Inside was a large, leather bound book with the title emblazoned in gold.

"Once Upon a Time," she read.

"Fairy tales?" she wondered, as she opened the book and was suddenly seized with a river of memories running through her.

"Oh my God!" she cried out, as it all came back to her. She put the book down and dug through the box, extracting the Dark One dagger from it.

"I need to find Mom, Dad, and Bobby," she uttered, as she grabbed her bag. She stuffed the book into it, as she heard a noise.

"Hello?" she called, but received silence. A chill ran down her spine and she clutched the dagger.

"Daddy?" she called, but somehow knew he wasn't there.

"Afraid not, young one…" a voice said and she turned to find a man that she recognized as King Arthur.

"My my...you have grown up. You were so very small the last time I saw you," Arthur said.

"As fair as your mother," Gawain said.

"You stay away from me, jerk face," she growled.

"And with the same mouth too," he quipped.

"Believe it or not...I do not want to hurt you, little one. Just give me the dagger and we will be on our way," Arthur said, as she clutched it and backed away. She ran from them, as their arms became alive with fiery chains. She screamed, as Gawain sliced through the kitchen table and she ran out the backdoor, before colliding with a young man she didn't recognize.

"I'm sorry…" he said, as he helped her up.

"Who are you?" she asked, as Arthur and Gawain tore their way through the house.

"Uh...later," he said, as he led her back to his car. Just a few moments ago, he had the opportunity to run away, but something had told him not to and now he knew why.

~*~

A Few Moments Ago

"You're welcome crazies!" he called, as the two weirdos that had forced them to drive them four hours to Boston got out in front of a nice house in a very nice suburb.

"JJ...what are you waiting for? Floor it!" Nora urged. He snorted.

"So everything you've been going on about for seven years is probably true and now you want to run?" he asked.

"Away from those psychos...yeah!" she answered. But he heard a scream from inside the house and got out of the car.

"Someone is in trouble...stay here!" he told her, as he ran around the back of the house. He may have been dragged into this conspiracy stuff unwillingly, but now that the danger was real and people needed help, that's where he shined. He wanted to help real people from real danger and he wasn't about to run away from that, even if what the danger he was facing seemed wildly unreal.

JJ took the girl's hand and they ran to his car. Nora was still in the back seat and he opened the passenger door for her.

"Get in," he said, but Summer hesitated and looked back at the house.

"I need to find my parents," she replied.

"Fine, but it's not safe here and I assure you that we're better than those freaks," he said. She nodded and got in. He ran to the driver's side.

"Where to?" he asked.

"North Star High...I'll tell you how to get there, just go," she urged, as he peeled away, leaving Arthur and Gawain behind…

~*~

Training was in full swing at the refuge, as Leo sparred his Uncle James and his wife was firing icicles at Regina, who was using fire to extinguish them, just as Eva ran into the training room.

"Honey...what is it?" Winter asked.

"Something is happening in Boston...it's all over the news," she said, as Rumple magicked a television into the room and they turned to one of the national news stations.

"And if you're just joining us, Boston is experiencing a strange series of weather events. No one is sure how or why, but the source of the earthquake appears to be a local school, North Star High," the reporter droned on.

"North Star High?" Leo asked.

"We looked it up. Your Mom teaches there under the name Margaret Nolan and Bobby is a freshman there," Paul replied.

"But...that doesn't make any sense. Why would Bobby unleash his powers?" Elsa asked.

"And how even? They're in the Land Without Magic," Leo added.

"Mom and Dad have their half of chalice, even if they don't know it," she reminded him.

"Which means something must be happening and Bobby might not be able to control his powers. It's the only way he'd ever use them out there," Regina surmised.

"Exactly...but this could be the catalyst we need. Emma should be there by now and she'll bring them home," Rumple stated.

"Except that we know Seth sent Arthur and Gawain after them and if people see those two and what they can do? There is no putting this one back in the bottle," James said. Aphrodite nodded.

"Snow and David will know what to do...we have to have faith. I'm assuming that package has been delivered?" the Goddess asked the Dark One.

"Young Summer should have it by now and with any luck she's awake so it's only a matter of time until the rest are," he replied.

"Let's hope you're right, because Seth has access to every magic book in Rose Red's library and if he finds a way through our barrier prematurely...then it's over," the Evil Queen warned.

"Then I guess it's time for you to take a page from the Charming manual as I have, Your Majesty. We must have hope," he said. She looked at him in disgust.

"Hope...that damn word. It always comes down to hope and that insipid princess and her idiot husband," the Queen complained, receiving many glares, most notably from the twins.

"I'm sorry...I love you both, but your mother and father are a menace," she complained.

"No...they're heroes and they'll be back soon to help us fight. With the United Realms joining together, all our armies, all our magic...Seth will go down and we need to be ready," Regina said. Robin smiled at her and put his arms around her.

"And we will be, because we're all heroes, especially you now," he said, as she smiled back at him.

"And if we can't put this back in the bottle? Even if we do defeat Seth...what if the whole world becomes aware of our existence?" Leo asked.

"Yeah...because something tells me that Seth might decide he wants to rule more than just the United Realms," Eva added.

"I'm afraid you're right...Seth may decide he wants to conquer the world. But we'll save it and then we may have to face an entirely new world where we are no longer hidden," Aphrodite told them.

"As hard as it may be, it can be done. There was a time on the Earth in the realm where Fandral comes from that believed magic, Gods, and heroes were mere fantasy, very recently, in fact. But that is no longer the case there and may no longer be the case here much longer. But I am certain of one thing," Hermes said.

"What's that?" Leo asked. She and Aphrodite smiled.

"Your parents will lead us through it all. Your family is a beacon of hope to everyone in the United Realms and I know that the same will be true for the whole world if such comes to be," Aphrodite declared. The twins exchanged a glance and nodded. They weren't sure they liked the idea of their family being so exposed to the world, but they knew she was right. Their parents would somehow lead them through it all with their love shining like the brightest guiding star in the sky...

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #OC Charmings #AU #the united realms #original season 8 storyline #Rose Red #Fandral the Dashing #Dashing Rose #background Rumbelle #background OQ #background CS #romance #adventure #family #finding you always #the epic continues

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burnouts3s3 · 5 years

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Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, a review

Hellboy was enough of a success for director Guillermo Del Toro to greenlight a sequel and make another movie with Ron Perlman in 2008. This time, Universal Studios was distributing the film. During Christmas 1955, a young Hellboy is told a bedtime story by his adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm, of an ancient war between human and magical creatures. After the magical creatures are driven back by the humans, the goblin blacksmiths extend an offer to Balor, king of the elves, to build him an indestructible mechanical army. Encouraged by his son Prince Nuada, Balor accepts; the Golden Army subsequently decimates humanity. Regretting his actions, Balor forms a truce with the humans, that they will keep to the cities and the magical creatures to the forests. The crown to command the Golden Army, which can only be worn by one of royal blood, is split into three pieces. Nuada, disagreeing with the truce, leaves in exile. In the present, Nuada returns and begins gathering the pieces of the crown. He collects the first piece from an auction, killing everyone at the site by unleashing tooth fairies, and kills his father for the second piece. His twin sister, Princess Nuala, escapes with the final piece. Meanwhile, at the B.P.R.D., Hellboy is having issues with his girlfriend Liz, and dislikes that their organization must operate in secrecy. Investigating the auction slaughter, Hellboy allows himself to be revealed to the world. In the commotion, Abe Sapien discovers Liz is pregnant; she swears him to secrecy. If I’m being honest, the Golden Army is a far superior film than the 1st one but, I like the 1st one better. (My tolerance for Jimmy Kimmel cameos notwithstanding). There are notable changes. Rupert Everett, who played Myers in the previous movie, signed on to star in the broadway show “Kiss of the Spider-woman” and couldn’t return. That’s probably for the best; Myers served his purpose in the 1st movie and the proceedings are much stronger without him. (An amusing line reveals that Hellboy had him transferred to Antarctica). Furious at Hellboy's actions, the Bureau's superiors send the ectoplasmic medium Johann Krauss to rein him in. With Krauss in charge, the team tracks the tooth fairies to a secret market under the Brooklyn Bridge. Abe finds Nuala, who has obtained a map leading to the Golden Army, and falls in love with her. Hellboy fights and kills Nuada's accomplice Wink, and an elemental forest god that Nuada summons against him. During the fight Nuada questions why he fights for the humans when they have driven the magical creatures into hiding, of which he too is one. Nuala is taken under the B.P.R.D.'s protection. And of course, we have to talk about Hans Krauss, voiced by Family Guy creator and Frank Sinatra enthusiast, Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane always had a talent for voice acting (one need only look over to his archive of voicework in Family Guy and American Dad to see that), but he manages to imbue real feeling into Krauss. Not only that, the make up work for Krauss remains spectacular to this day and manages to have the best effects I’ve ever seen with very little CGI. It’s too bad after this scene, Krauss doesn’t do much of anything else. Yeah, I know there’s a big fight scene where Krauss takes possession of a giant golem and starts wrecking other golems, but other than that, he’s pretty peripheral. Sure, it’s cool looking but it’s just visual filler. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if early drafts of the script had Krauss stay the bad guy and be left behind so that Hellboy, Liz and Abe could finish the movie. The majority of special effects remains impressive to this day. The Troll Market scene remains a delight to watch with all the special make-up and creature feature effects. A lot of filmmakers have attempted to recreate the Cantina scene from Star Wars: A New Hope (even recently from Star Wars: The Force Awakens), but only this scene rivals it in my opinion.

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What’s interesting is the parallel love stories in the work. Obviously, we see the romantic troubles between Liz and Hellboy from the first movie, but the Abe and Nuala relationship remains profoundly cute and touching. Doug Jones has always had talent working under heavy make-up, but it’s through Abe that he’s able to bring the relationship to life (and also hints to how the Shape of Water ended up being so good as it did). Honestly, any superhero film that can pull off having Barry Manilow on the soundtrack is a plus in my book.

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Through a series of events, Hellboy ends up almost dying with Liz begging for his life even though it’s prophesized Hellboy would bring about the End of the World. But the Angel of Death saves Hellboy and Hellboy returns to kick ass and fight Nuada (in one of the best fight scenes I’ve seen choreographed). Hellboy defeats Nuada and spares his life, but Nuada tries stabbing him. Nuala commits suicide to stop her brother; the dying Nuada tells Hellboy he will have to choose whether humanity or magical beings must die. Abe psychically shares his feelings with Nuala before she dies. Liz melts the crown apart, deactivating the Golden Army. Hellboy, Liz, Abe, and Johann resign from the B.P.R.D., and Hellboy contemplates his future life with Liz and their baby. Liz corrects "babies", revealing that she is pregnant with twins.

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So, would Hellboy bring about the destruction of the world? Would he ever gain the respect of the humans he risks so much to protect? Would he and Liz ever raise the twins in a House with a yard as he wished for?

Sadly, we’ll never know.

The financial returns of Hellboy 2 were not strong. While earning $160 Million worldwide isn’t something to scoff at, it wasn’t good news for distributor Universal Studios, especially for a film with an $85 Million budget.

So, what happened to Hellboy 3?

Lots of things, actually.

Del Toro went on to other projects (He was actually slated to direct the Hobbit at one point but it didn’t work out). He also tried to get the Lovecraftian horror film, At the Mountains of Madness, greenlit, but Universal was not having a good year at the box office and decided to greenlight more Fast and Furious movies instead.

Eventually, Ron Perlman, after going in Hellboy makeup to meet a terminally ill child for the Make-a-wish foundation, said that a Hellboy 3 script had already been finished, but the deal never went through.

Finally, after years of rumors and gossip, Summit Entertainment (the studio behind the Twilight Films and the Hunger Games adaptations), announced it had the rights and would be rebooting Hellboy… without Guillermo Del Toro … or Ron Perlman… or Liz… or Abe Sapien… and would be operating on a significantly lower budget.

Yeah… (Though they did offer Doug Jones to return as Abe. Jones turned down the role as he was working on Star Trek: Discovery at the time).

For the record, Guillermo Del Toro was actually okay with the franchise moving on without him.

www.cinemablend.com/news/16705…

archive.is/RufIb

I don't own Hellboy, Mike [Mignola] does. So, you know, he is the father of the character and if he wants to reboot it, it's perfectly fine. I got to make two -- that's two more than I thought I would get to make... So you know, as far as I'm concerned godspeed and god bless.

Ron Perlman… not so much.

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While I’m curious of how the new Hellboy will turn out and how another actor fits the role, I’ll always have stone-fist shaped place in my heart for Del Toro and Perlman’s Hellboy.

#hellboy #Guillermo Del Toro #Ron Perlman #hellboy 2 the golden army #hellboy ii: the golden army #dark horse comics #mike mignola #selma blair #doug jones #the shape of water #abe sapien #liz sherman #bprd

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the-working-class-guide-to-films · 5 years

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Green Book

How does a guy who has made such hits as: Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Shallow Hal; go and make something like the Green Book. Decent films, but they’re trash. They’re good trash, but nonetheless, trash. The Green Book was such a profound film, that I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that Peter Farrelly, who directed this, also directed Movie 43, voted one of the worst films ever made.

Green Book is about the famous black jazz artist, Dom Shirley, who hires Tony Vallelonga an Italian to be his bodyguard/driver whilst Dom tours the deep south of America with his band. Both are very different characters, Dom being reserved and particular, Tony, loud and abrasive, and also not a fan of black people in general, especially when he is bossed around by one. As the film continues, we see how they both help each other to become a more rounded person, and how Tony learns to become a more thoughtful...well he stops being a racist.

I found the film very enjoyable. I thought both Viggo Mortensen as Tony and Mahershala Ali as Dom were brilliant. There chemistry on screen really made the audience connect to the characters, both fantastic. I can’t judge Adam Driver as I never saw BlacKKKlansman, but Ali from the others I have seen should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Viggo has it tougher, although he was great, I still think Bale in Vice should win Best Actor, he was exceptional. Whilst the two actors drove the story forward and really made it enjoyable, they weren’t the only things. The story was well controlled and the pacing was just right. I’ve heard criticisms of the film saying it wasn’t hard hitting enough. I thought for the 12A rating it was dark enough to give the message without showing too much violence. It obviously easily could’ve done more in that respect, but the film wasn’t showing the effect of racism on a country-wide scale, but on the personal level between the two friends. It done enough to show that, without being too much.

(i know this gif has absolutely nothing to do with Green Book, but man, Viggo, I love you)

I really loved everything about this movie, however it didn’t blow me away. It did feel a little bit too nice. That’s not meant to sound contradicting to my previous point, but I just felt something was missing from this film to make it really special. To give it 5 out of of 5 y’know.

4/5 There were a lot of good things about this movie. The story was powerful and got it’s message about understanding and welcoming without ramming it down your throat. Mortensen and Ali were both fantastic however and all credit should go to them for making this movie as good as it was.

p.s I’ve been contemplating doing this p.s, I still don’t know if I will or not. But I saw this film the day after the Liam Neeson fiasco. And I just wanted to say how important it is to talk and have conversations. This isn’t the best platform, because your point will never come across as you want it to. You can’t explain it as well as you would talking about this, so bear with. What this film done well was show that Viggo had racist ideas, it showed him putting two drinking glasses in a bin because black people drunk from them. We can all agree that’s racist right. By the end of the 2 hour film, and the journey that these two completely opposite men went on, Viggo changed. He wanted more than anything to be with his new friend, a black man. He invites him to dinner, and is torn up with him not being there. He is so happy when he does show up. He’s a different man. He’s not the man now who would put drinking glasses in the bin because a black man drunk from them. He’s changed for the good.

Liam Neeson had racist thoughts. He may not be a racist man now, but he did have racist thoughts 40 years ago. What’s important is that he has changed and is ashamed of his irrational thinking. I think it is so important that these conversations are held. It offers people the chance to be educated and put to right. I’m a white straight guy. I understand racism, but I do not know racism. I don’t know what that feels like. And I’m certainly not here to say that people should forgive Liam Neeson, or hold this against him. I just believe that difficult conversations like race, like sexuality and others need to be freely held to have some understanding, so we can see a different view point. Whenever something like this pops up, which seems to be more frequent, I try to ask my black friends their opinions on the matter. I trust my own moral compass enough to have my own thoughts and feelings, most of the time, they say what I thought, but sometimes they make me see another viewpoint that I hadn’t considered, or even thought about because I, as a white guy do not see, no matter how much I try to understand. And I think that it is incredibly important that conversations like this are held.

I think there is a problem with white people in the respect that they hear a black man they know and respect, John Barnes for example, say ‘Liam Neeson deserves a medal for having the courage to stand up and talk about this’ and then not consider that not every black person will think the same as this ONE black person. They will be annoyed and be like ‘well John is black and thought this, why don’t you?’. John Barnes is entitled to feel that way, and every black person is allowed to agree or disagree with him. It annoys me so much when I hear something like this. For the record, I don’t think Liam Neeson deserves a medal.

I think this goes back to the whole argument about patriotism and about being English. I’m proud to be English, I’ve got my England flags flying outside my window during the World Cup, and I will loudly moan if someone is queuing up stupidly, and I will slap my hands on my knees and say ‘best be off’ when I wanted to leave 2 hours ago. But I understand why people do not like England, or more centrally, the British Empire. The British Empire committed horrific atrocities across the globe, they were murderers, rapists, the worst bunch of twats you could come across. The problem is, we aren’t taught about these things at school. We are only taught about the good things, Churchill winning the war (not the genocide he caused in India), Henry the 8th, and other stuff that is pleasant. It’s only that I took history as a subject that you start learning that Western Civilization were the bad guys, e.g Britain and America. I learned about The Troubles in Ireland, and how the Brits were at fault. I learned about Native Americans, and again how it was the Brits and the Americans who basically caused genocide to their people. But if you have a conversation with someone who doesn’t know, because they haven’t been educated, or haven’t had serious and deep conversations about the failures of a culture we have grown up believing ‘We are the good guys’ then they will think you are a nutjob. Again, education and conversation are crucially important to creating a better society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBy0FLAAwKQ

That’s a link to Trevor Noah talking about it. A lot funnier and eloquently put than me.

I know this has gone off topic, but I wanted to say this. Did Liam Neeson have racist thoughts. He sure did. Do I think that Liam Neeson is a racist person now? I don’t think it is up to me, a white guy, to determine if someone is or isn’t racist. I don’t think that white people, or anyone for that matter should just always get free passes to make mistakes. I think in 2019 the majority of people know the difference between wrong and right, and possibly only in youth are mistakes made. But I’m not naive enough to know that there are plenty of people old enough who continue to be, dicks. I just hope that we continue to have difficult conversations, I only believe it makes us grow, individually and collectively. And if you want to talk about this, if you think I’ve missed the point, or have something to add that would benefit me, then please, drop me a message. Don’t just call me a c*** like that one guy did when I said that Venom had some scenes that was full of toxic masculinity, that benefits nobody. Or even if you wanna talk about the film, which is what this blog was about, then please do that. Anyhoo, best be off!

#film #Film Review #movies #movie review #cinema #cinema review #new #green book #viggo mortensen #mahershala ali #liam neeson

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 6 years

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Suits 1 x 08 Analysis Part IV

After the failed father-daughter reconciliation, we are once again treated to Harvey Specter scapegoating Louis Litt who, to his credit, had attempted a reconciliation with Perkins’ grieving widow. Poorly-timed? Of course.

But coming with flowers is far better than pretending to lead a charitable organisation in order to extort information from a widow. Does Harvey Specter know any better? And then: “You need to get your shit together and find us a new witness.”, but no attempt made on Harvey’s part to share information so that they can work efficiently together.

I don’t intend to excuse the volumes of sins that Louis Litt commits, nor to say that they have an understandable cause. The more I have watched since then, the more I blame Jessica Pearson for the eventual rupture-- almost more than I blame Harvey Specter.

However, the latter deserves more censure for his own arrogance, manipulation, and scapegoating of Louis Litt. It isn’t sufficient that he was made Senior Partner (through blackmail in 1 x 01); he has to rub it into Louis’ face on a daily basis for no good reason other than to convince himself he is the best-- even though Louis probably works harder than he does.

Now we come to a turning point scene between Michael and Lola.

The first thing to notice is that Lola Jensen completely takes Michael Ross by surprise when she shows up at his apartment. How she discovered his address is never mentioned, although we must assume by now that she is more than adept at seeking out classified information.

But again, you need to watch Michael’s reaction and how irrational it is:

[Lola] “Wanted to apologise for earlier today. Can I come in?”

The first question Michael should have asked was, “How did you get my address?”

Whilst a lawyer has the right to request sensitive information from his or her client, protected by attorney-client privilege, can a client do the same in reverse? Not to mention the fact that Lola isn’t even a client. So that leaves us with two potential options: either Michael gave her his address, which I consider unlikely, or she used underhand means of seeking this information. I don’t think Jerome Jensen knew his address, and there would be no reason for her to request this off Harvey, since that would reveal her hand.

Furthermore, we know that Harvey dislikes her, although no indication is given why. More on that in the subsequent installment.

So, this leaves the real option that Lola has looked into him. Michael doesn’t ask this obvious question. Why?

He is thoroughly disarmed by her.

The second question should have been, “What are you doing here?”, which is of course answered by her announcement. Instead he just says her name.

Notice that he uses her first name, not “Miss Jensen”-- far more appropriate for the kind of relationship between them. Why? He is still in “save the lost, sweet Girl” mode.

The third question should have been, “What are you doing here at this time of night?” Sure, Michael often has to work late at the office, so she made a reasonable guess. But the lateness of the visit cannot bode well and Michael Ross of all people should constantly be suspicious when he gets late-night calls, as the Trevor travesties have demonstrated.

Three crucial questions ignored in favour of surprise. That is to say, he is surprised she came back to him after ignoring his earlier summons.

[Lola] “Can I come in?”

[Michael] “Er yeah; of course.”

Serious error of judgement!

Am I the only one who considers this inappropriate? Quite apart from the fact that she is a lone female entering his apartment at night, she is also the daughter of a longtime Pearson Hardman client. Isn’t he compromising his integrity so far? He has clearly allowed a great deal of emotional attachment to cloud his judgement and thus leading him to make such a decision.

If someone had called me an “empty suit” and then ruined my attempts to forge a reconciliation between them and their father, the last place I would want to see them was at my house! What could we possibly have to discuss?

What could Michael possibly say to Lola that couldn’t be said at the office? Remember, Lola said that she wanted to apologise for her behaviour earlier. Does she need to enter his apartment to do that? Does she even need to visit his house? (Yes, I know what happens afterwards, but I have to reason the case from Michael’s perspective to demonstrate his unusually attached behaviour concerning Lola). Michael does not even say that she should apologise to her father instead of to him-- after all, he is nothing more than a mediator.

Instead, he allows her into his apartment. “Of course,” he says, although he is obliged to do so.

Why does Michael Ross do this?

He thinks Lola is back on his side, has somehow been brought to reason, that maybe he can salvage something from the ashes and prove himself again.

[Lola] “Nice gesture, Temple Gardens?”

Notice that whilst she is saying this, Michael Ross shuts the door behind her. Why? An apology won’t take that long.

[Michael] “You said it was a pretty special place for you guys.”

She did?

Folks, think about what this implies. That Lola, after her sulky and contemptuous introduction, was willing to volunteer sensitive information about her childhood implies that she intended to cooperate with Michael Ross-- but why? Evidently, she wanted to confront her father. However, that would put the episode out of sync with her later outrage that her father hadn’t called her personally. It would have been telling to see this scene between Michael and Lola-- how he managed to track her down again after their disastrous first meeting and how he offered her hope of reconciliation.

Michael going out of his way to find a special place that would soften Lola’s heart shows a deliberate and unusual level of consideration. After all, Jerome tried to get his family problems solved by walking into a lawyer’s office and getting lawyers to chase his daughter down. They could have had this meeting in one of Pearson Hardman’s many offices. Again, I am inclined to think that this gesture was aimed entirely at Lola, particularly since she gives him credit for it as shown earlier.

Notice that Michael lets Lola walk in and stroll about in his apartment.

Love the mini-Mike action figure. That’s cute. But Michael’s cute, anyway.

[Lola] “It was-- but then he became CEO.”

Family issues, of course. Neglect, frustration, the works. Still not enough motivation for embezzlement, fraud, and cyber hacking.

[Lola] “I must say, I was, uh, really impressed you figured out what I was doing... Especially since you’re not even a real lawyer!”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you let sulky renegades into your apartment at night.

Like a fish, Michael is caught.

But, we do get a hint of some other emotions behind Lola’s impenetrable façade. We now know that quite apart from her nonchalance when Michael caught her at Columbia, she was not alarmed, but impressed! She has finally met her match; someone has thrown a spanner in her works.

[Lola] “I accessed Harvard Law School’s Alumni directory; every class that graduated for the last 10 years. No record of Mike Ross at all.”

In retrospect, one should hardly be surprised that Lola Jensen would look into Michael Ross in the same way he did to her.

But as I write this analysis, I suddenly ask myself why she looked up Harvard and how she was led to that conclusion. After all, the fact that Michael Ross is fiendishly clever does not mean that he must be a fake lawyer. She must have been searching for something to use as leverage against him, and then was struck by the lack of information available on him.

This would mean, of course, that she was doubly impressed by his investigative skills, given that he had never sat the LSAT, let alone graduated from Harvard.

[Michael] “Yeah, the Dean’s office was supposed to fix that; they put my name wrong in the system.”

Lamest excuse ever, and it’s a testament to how disarmed Michael is that he fails to grasp the intelligence of his foe. He already knows that she can hack into classified company data and he pulls the administrator error when she confronts him with evidence of his fraud? The man is thrashing around in an ocean here. Playing with forces he cannot understand. You have to sympathise with him, being outwitted by a sulky, sanctimonious university student (actual university student, one might add), whilst he stands in a t-shirt and jeans, struggling to gain the upper hand.

[Lola] (pretends to laugh) “I checked your Social Security number against the database.”

[Michael] “How d’you get my Social Security number?”

[Lola] “Easily.”

Michael Ross looks terrified, as he well should.

Now, a few things to discuss here.

Anyone notice how quickly Lola jumps into her research after the failed meeting with her father? We are, of course, to assume that she came to his apartment on the very night. This suggests desperation. Although she credits Michael with making a “nice gesture”, she understands that he will not leave her alone.

So, here’s my question: if this all pans out as the product of a broken father-daughter relationship, why does Lola then say this:

[Lola] “Here’s the deal: leave me alone, or I expose you.”

If what she wanted was a reunion with her father, then Michael is on her side. He’s even dredging up pleasant memories from her childhood to effect that reunion, letting her into his apartment, and obviously itching to try again. So why would she pull such a double whammy on the very night that he tries to heal the breach?

Isn’t it evident that Lola sees Michael as a threat to her investigations and research, and will stifle her voice of protest against her father’s environmental damage if he continues to act for her father? That is the only plausible reason for her to blackmail him in this fashion. People don’t make such threats without strong cause.

And notice the wording that Lola uses: “...leave ME alone, or I expose YOU.” The capitalised emphasis is my own. It’s a me versus you issue. She doesn’t tell him to drop the case with her father; she wants him off her tail, meaning he cannot expose her embezzlement. She has him in a headlock, a man she barely knows and for whom she has precious little time, let alone respect.

For what rational reason would Lola stop Michael from trying to reconcile her and her father? None, of course.

It’s all about Clarity Drilling and their destruction of the environment, thinking that settlements are sufficient to atone for such damage.

TBC

#Suits #MichaelRoss #HarveySpecter #LewisLitt #LolaJensen #MichaelxLola #JeromeJensen #DonnaPaulsen #metalhead #Deb'sAnalysis

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wrockingwriter · 5 years

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To Be, or Not to Be: Canon

Before we dive into everything, I want to be sure that we’re all on the same page when we discuss what is and is not Canon. So, a couple definitions:

Fanon is the collection of widely agreed upon information that has little, if any, supporting evidence in the source material. Think things like Hermione’s Parents’ names, or calling Harry, Ron and Hermione the Golden Trio.

Canon is the collection of information found in the source material or from the author/scriptwriter directly. Character names, romantic pairs seen in the books/films, etc.

This panel comes from there being too many different sources of information (original books, film adaptations, side books (Beedle the Bard, interviews (pre 2009, post 2016, etc) twitter, Pottermore, video games, the Play (which is a debate all its own), the new film franchise) where not all the information adds up. There is conflict, or a character acts in a wholly different way between mediums (Ron) and if you haven’t interacted with all of the material (or sometimes just not enough, or in the same order, as someone else) you could have an entirely different opinion of a character or situation. SOmetimes to the point that you could be having two entirely different conversations at the same time about a single subject and BOTH be correct.

So I’m going to use a few character examples, and a couple object examples of things that vary wildly between the various pieces of the Wizarding World we all know and love; then I’ll turn the floor over to you guys!

---

I think there are two examples of film-to-book differences that make me the most angry when it comes to characters. First, easily, is Regulus Black, and through him Kreacher. These I’m counting as my first example, as you can’t have one without the other- they’re too connected.

Regulus Black is often referred to as a more acceptable example of a Slytherin who became a Death Eater and regretted it than Severus Snape (though honestly I don’t see them as particularly similar outside of that). In the films, Regulus is barely a footnote in a conversation, but in the books (despite how similarly brief his story really is) there is so much more depth.

In the film, Kreacher says Regulus ordered ordered him to destroy the locket and he couldn’t. That’s it. I watched that scene a dozen times. What a disservice.

In the books there’s more to it than that. We get a picture painted for us. Sirius had told Harry that Regulus had joined up young, gotten cold feet, and been killed for it. We’re brought into his bedroom, still obviously done in the style of a kid- and one trying to emphasise just how much he was a ‘proper’ Black compared to Sirius. Regulus’ room is entirely done in Slytherin colours, a mural of the Black family crest and motto above his bed, a collection of Daily Prophet clippings about Voldemort… a fanatic.

Kreacher, under duress from Harry’s orders to answer everything truthfully, reveals that Regulus joined Voldemort at 16 and tells the story of the locket. 17 year old Regulus telling Kreacher that he’d volunteered him for a special task, and he was to come home after. We, as readers, know what happened in the Cave- and Kreacher told Regulus all that transpired, and Regulus’ reaction was to be worried for Kreacher, order him to stay hidden/not leave the house, and then go research. Some small time later, Regulus came to see Kreacher while ‘strange, disturbed in the mind’ and ordered him to bring him to the Cave.

Kreacher tells the trio that Regulus sacrificed himself in the Cave. He drank the potion himself, has Kreacher switch the lockets, and ordered Kreacher to leave without him and to never tell his mother what happened.

Regulus Black learned of the Horcrux, and made the choice to not only take what he thought was the ONLY Horcrux and replace it with a fake, or simply ensure (or so he thought) its destruction, or just save his elf from having to endure the potion twice, but he ensured that Voldemort would never discover what he had done via legilimency of himself or his family by dying in the act and ordering Kreacher to never tell his family what had happened.

And, because of all these actions on Regulus’ part, at the battle of Hogwarts Kreacher rallies the House Elves of Hogwarts in Regulus’ name.

---

In the same vein, I’m going to talk about Severus Snape. The films did a great amount of lightening of Snape’s horrid actions- and also did a great disservice to his character with their adaptation of The Prince’s Tale.

So let’s start with the ugly.

Snape is a childish, surly, bully; he took the awful things of his youth and instead of acting against them he allowed himself the awful actuality of becoming that which had so tormented his youth. Instead of refuting, or rising about the bullying, he went to the opposite extreme: make others suffer as I have suffered. He’s worse to some characters- the easiest to name are Harry, Neville, and Hermione. Harry, the (seeming) spitting image of his his bully father; Neville, the other choice for Voldemort that may have spared Lily’s life (though, as we know, the fate of the Longbottoms was no less gruesome, and in some ways more tragic); and Hermione, a brilliant muggleborn witch that likely reminds him very much of Lily.

There is no excusing the deplorable way he treats children. There are reasons, but no excuses, and certainly to forgiveness. The films took great care to not portray some of the worst actions Snape takes with these characters: telling Hermione that he ‘sees no difference’ from the effects of Draco’s curse, telling/instructing Neville to test his Shrinking Solution on Trevor while saying it would likely be poisonous if improperly made; honestly, he was a child’s BOGGART for fuck’s sake. The films made light of these things.

I’ve held lots of Snape panels about Snape’s character; how his morals and emotional maturity (or lack thereof) were shaped by his past, but that’s an entirely different talk. But what makes me most angry is how they handled The Prince’s Tale. The film pretty much erases all of his growing up with Lily, the ways he interacted with Petunia- it gave the very bare bones and then interspersed it with these bits of him cradling Lily’s dead body. Let’s ignore the moments before, of Lily telling infant Harry that he’s loved, as they literally make no sense as he wasn’t there.

Actually, the whole sequence makes no sense. But the memories they chose to keep tell a fraction of the story. They shift the viewer’s opinions from being based upon his actions with the kids/sacrifices in the wake of the Potters’ death to being about his ignoring a crying infant child to cradle the body of his dead ex-friend which didn’t actually happen.

Yes, I have some strong opinions about this.

---

We also, going by the films, know literally none of the essential information about Tom Riddle. We’re also robbed of the moment the Wizarding World sees the monster they’ve feared all this time was only a man all along. There is no explanation of the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse, or how the Horcruxes were chosen.

By this point in the films, they assume that the viewer has read all the books and can fill in the (copious) holes they’ve left themselves. Merope who? Morfin? Mrs. Cole? Hepzibah Smith? Hokey?

The films made Voldemort into an inhuman monster, which completely derailed so much of the series’ messages about growth, humanity, choice, and change. From Dumbledore to Harry to Voldemort, we are shown all these moments that shape them and those just don’t exist in the films.

---

What about items?

I’m skipping over the Horcruxes entirely to jump to the item whose entire existence in the films frustrates the crap out of me: the Mirror. Sirius’ mirror, the ‘small, square, old-looking mirror’ that Sirius and James would use to talk to one another while in separate detentions. The one that’s supposedly the size of a book.

What the hell is the serving tray that’s hanging on Aberforth’s wall in the Hog’s Head?? Even more importantly, where did movie!Harry even get the Mirror shard in the first place?

Time Turners! Let’s not forget the Time Turners that were all destroyed FOR A REASON in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. If we go by Pottermore information, (which I do so lightly) the Hour-Reversal Charm that’s encased in the sand is an incredibly unstable bit of magic. Realistically, how could 19 years not only stabilise the Charm but amplify it exponentially to the point we see in The Play? We don’t know how long it took to develop the Charm in the first place, but with Croaker’s Law forming the 5-hour limit, why/how could someone have developed a device that went that much farther back without notice if the 5-hour limit is due to serious harm befalling both the traveller and time itself?

---

Though not items, the repeatedly Ghosts and House Elves are entirely ignored by the films until they were needed in a way that couldn’t just be passed on to another character (cough, Neville having all of Dobby’s important moments, cough) and Peeves is erased entirely. These characters were important and helped shape out characters into people. Dobby and Winky’s lives brought forth Hermione’s anger at perceived injustices; Harry’s talks and overall odd relationship with Nearly Headless Nick display his wanting to be as kind and helpful as he can be; Peeves’ relationship with the Weasley Twins was just… so much.

It’s understandable that things got cut, it’s natural, there is no way to tell both a complete narrative from a book-perspective in a film and have a decent film. It’s just not possible to have it all in there. But the problem is WHAT got cut- Helena Ravenclaw was important. Hokey the House Elf, Merope- they were important. Why didn’t they just ask JK more often what was important to keep??

Any gravitas and heartbreak you’re supposed to feel for Dobby when he dies just isn’t there because we don’t know him.

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But enough on that end- let’s get to the other layers of this talk.

How many kinds of informational sources are there for the Wizarding World?

*This is MY breakdown:

Tier 1: Word of God (circa early-2009 and before), books 1-7, Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook, Tales of Beedle the Bard, JK site reveals (WOMBAT, family trees, etc) and the current Fantastic Beasts films.

Tier 2: HP film adaptations, Pottermore, JK interviews post-2009, video game information

Tier 3: Cursed Child, JK Twitter, deleted scenes from the films that were not in the books.

FOR ME this works, because I feel like things like interviews and such depend so much on the context and timing of being said. Is the author in that headspace, where they know all the extraneous information that never made it into print? Or are they making snap decisions without research into their own world? Even Philip Pullman (Golden Compass) needed to refer to an outside compendium of information while writing the newest books in the series.

As a writer I know that it’s hard to keep track of everything in my universe at whim, so I take timing into account. Especially when things conflict- like Minerva McGonagall in Crimes of Grindelwald but I’m hoping there’s a better explanation for her presence than JK not knowing how time works a la Prisoner of Azkaban.

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The question, from what I can see, becomes less of a ‘what’s true’ and far more of a ‘what counts.’ Do we go by what was said, or what she’s saying? Where do we, the community that’s taken the World and made it ur own, draw the line between Canon facts and Fanon fiction? And how can we bridge the gap between people whose core Canon understandings differ hugely from our own?

In a circumstance like this, where the universe is still an ever-expanding thing, to know Canon from Fanon is incredibly difficult. Adaptations alone are both blessing and curse, but at least there one can say that there is a definitive source material- or make very clear that one is vastly different from the other (like Walking Dead, by having the series take a different choice at a crossroads).

But with a creator who continuously expands the world, and reimagines the things that we know (or assume to know) as true, there seems to e no way to say that something is 100% true- even once it’s been recorded in black and white.

It seems, to me at least, that the only real solution is for each of us to make the decision for ourselves- and that isn’t really a solution at all. But until a least the things we could consider to be common knowledge stop changing, I don’t see another solution.

But do you?

#leakycon 2019 #wrockingwriter #canon #discussion of canon #wizarding world

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surelypovichjr · 6 years

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Surely Waxes Brazilian Part III: Chip and Surely’s Legitimate Beef

This is part three in a four part series documenting my recent adventures in Brazil. Helluva time! Catch up with Part I and Part II before reading this sweet juicy peach! Zei Gezunt!

Is this Arby’s located in Brazil or is it simply Rockville Pike? The correct answer gets a free curly fry on the tab of Yers Surely.

Part III: Chip and Surely’s Legitimate Beef

It was an unbearably humid morning just like the rest of them—February in Rio. The days had been like this for awhile now…business was good, but still, pushing Isabel’s cart up the steep, winding roads of the Morro da Babilônia favela, I could sense that something was off. I continue pushing the cart, up to where Isabel is standing at the top of a hilly mound; quickly, I brushed aside my ominous feelings, and stop to admire the curvaceous silhouette Isabel is cutting on a makeshift shack with peeling yellow paint. A small tidepool of sweat crept down the beautiful boob job I had gotten her just the other week as the Brazilian morning grew increasingly swampy.

Isabel was worth all the salt in the shaker! Living here her entire twenty-six years made Isabel not only street-wise but also endearing to everyone she greeted; a friend and trustworthy woman to the whole neighborhood, a brand of community cache no amount of money could buy. Chip’s business proposition that night had prompted Izzy to quit her library job and instead work for us…naturally, she still maintained her night shift at the City of Goddess, but at this point, it was just for some extra pocket change.

A weaker man might have wanted Isabel to quit that life but I prided myself on being a more enlightened individual. As my old friend Jeffrey Gildenhorn (RIP) once said, being a sex worker is a job just like any other. Reading up on the subject, I learned that workers like Isabel are far too often marginalized because of the broken way that our governments attempt to scandalize the occupation for political points with pearl-clutching constituents. Truly, if this world had any guts whatsoever, it’d realize that incorporating prostitution into the legal workforce would only increase communication between those in the industry and the people trying to stop slave-trafficking and other forms of heinous activity that ladies like Isabel sometimes run up against in their line of work. As Jeff said, cash for sex ain’t nuthin’ to sneeze at, unless, you know, that’s what gets yer dick off…and for me, it actually does, which is a pretty cool fetish, in my opinion. No judgment and no sneezeguards, is what I always say!

Jeffrey Gildenhorn was a Renaissance man ahead of his time in that the man both owned a diner AND ALSO advocated for the decriminalization and ultimate legalization of the sex worker industry in DC...in the early 1990s! A true visionary! RIP, my good friend.

Isabel was also now a sales associate for our latest business enterprise, Chip and Surely’s Legitimate “Beef”, a 501(c)(3) providing door-to-door food delivery services to the city’s minimally regulated outer boroughs. The whole shebang was paid for by the suckers at the UN in partnership with the International Olympic Committee, who were of the mind that feeding the country’s most at-risk citizens would be good for Rio’s image as the events approached.

Izzy was a great fit at CSLB; her wonderful customer relationships made her a natural pick to grace all of our company’s billboards and television commercials. Of course, I had hired my old photographer Trevor for these gigs. The guy had decided to stick it out in Brazil, and was doing good after a few recommendations with some of our business partners—and because of all the referrals, we didn’t have to pay him! As for Isabel, it cannot be overstated how good she was. Out of the 1,264 slums in and around the Rio de Janeiro, Isabel was Chip Rosenbaum’s top earner and the two of us became inseparable as we worked her old stomping grounds together, hand-in-hand. Still, she had her doubts.

“I don’t know what it is about this job,” said Isabel, having just made $25 selling a bag of grade D meat to a family of four, “but I feel like there’s something else I could be doing with my life. Surely, do you think I should go back to my job at the library? I know it’s less money, but it felt like I was making a difference.”

Isabel’s old job. Total snoozer.

For a moment I mulled this around in my head. The whole point of getting Izzy involved was to get her out of the library and onto the streets. There was more money to be made out here slinging hot beef than it was curled up inside the Biblioteca Nacional, collecting a steady, but below-average paycheck. A few more years of the illicit meat racket and the two of us could retire somewhere special, maybe even make it back to Rockville someday—of course, this would be after the statute of limitations on Ping’s child support runs out. On that day, I could see it all so clear. Me and Isabel, back in my North Bethesda duplex. I’d fit it up real nice with some quartz countertops and a tanning bed. We wouldn’t miss a beat. We’d be happy. Maybe raise a couple of children—maybe they’re even our children and not some random kids we see walking around Bethesda Row on Simchat Torah. Was it really so crazy?

The Bethesda Bagels where I am no longer welcome. I still frequent the Dupont location.

“I dunno, Izzy,” I said, rolling a bucket of rancid tripe up an unpaved embankment. “I think Chip’s doing right by us. We’re making money. Way more than you were dewey decimalin’…more than I ever did selling ‘ticles to this place and that. Why change things? Besides, we’re in love, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are, Surely. I don’t know what I was thinking. I love you.”

“I love you too,” giving her a peck on the cheek.

“Come on Surely, this meat isn’t going to sell itself,” said Isabel, knocking on the next door. A woman opened up and Isabel started in with the usual spiel.

“Would you care for…some tripe?” I asked, not waiting for the answer before unloading some samples on her sweet lil kiddos.

While I was eating at Arby’s my pal Chip had been buying ‘em up left and right. Chip’s dad Leo had died and left him with the family fortune. Turns out, the old man was the silent partner behind J.Chow’s Chicken, Salad, and Ribs in the White Flint Mall food court, arguably the best restaurant in the entire shopping center, besides the Cheesecake Factory, of course.

The J.Chow’s establishment at White Flint Mall. RIP.

For twenty years, Chip was doing well as the franchise owner of 64% of the Arby’s Restaurants in the lower 48, that is until Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign got underway. This initiative had an almost instant and deleterious effect on the fast food business, especially Arby’s which had at that time not yet launched its market sandwich line of healthier meal choices, such as the Carved Turkey on focaccia, a personal favorite of my son Ping, before he would hit the pool for afternoon swim practice.

To make matters worse, Chip had a supply problem…he had too much beef and nowhere to sell it. His restaurants were now doing a quarter of the big beefy business they had done in the golden years of the Clinton Administration, especially when the fat, philandering fuck machine himself would stroll into the Rockville Pike Arby’s every other week. Yes, Chip was in trouble, locked into a series of futures contracts with the cattlemen, he had an oversupply of product and also could not take advantage of falling meat prices; you didn’t want to get on the bad side of a cattleman, as anyone who has ever seen Lee Marvin’s Prime Cut can attest.

Prime Cut…thought-provoking flick about sellin’ meat.

Archibald’s: A DC Institution

Adding to his business problems was an embargo on sales of American meat to Asia, which made offloading the product nearly impossible for Chip. But just as things were looking their worst, my friend happened to overhear a conversation at Archibald’s, a primo titty bar not a stone’s throw from the White House. This was a deep conversation between some powerful people, men obviously, who were high ranking officials in the Brazilian government, United Nations, and International Olympics Committee respectfully. Fat knockers in their faces, the men were in discussions as to a public relations problem. With the Rio Olympics rapidly approaching, increasing scrutiny was being paid to the country by the international community.

Already, Brazil was being ridiculed for the thing. After all, said the UN official, how could the country’s leadership deem it appropriate to host an Olympic Games, to spend billions in public money for volleyball courts and golf courses, while upwards of a half a million children in Rio’s favelas met the World Health Organization’s definition of malnourishment?! At this, one of the Brazilian politicians laughed, “Sure they are poor children today,” he said, “but in two years, when you come for the Olympics...they will be the ones flashing a fake police badge to rob you at a ‘military checkpoint.’ You’ll come back to us, to the bullet caucus, and ask...why were you not tougher on the children...why did you not throw the children in a prison? But today is not that day...on this day, you wish for the children to have what, an order of curly fries...perhaps, a Big Montana?”

Better lucky than good, thought Chip Rosenbaum, turning around to introduce himself. Almost overnight, my friend’s business woes became a venture of formidable opportune...selling American products to a bunch of Latin American fascists...a tale as old as time. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

“Surely, aren’t you out of the sportswriting business? Chip asked. “I mean, these people are so corrupt, and no matter what you write, it’s 2016 man...literally no one cares. It’s just another blip on the rolling screen. Fuck man, ever since the Internet and that chucklehead Kornheiser yapping on ESPN...I mean...face it Surely, sportswriting is dead.”

Dad’s least favorite intern.

Chip had me on that. I was done writing. Even if there was no story, there was no one on the other end who would give the corruption story the respect it deserved.

And so, every morning for the past two years, Isabel and I have awoken in the same bed near dawn. I make us coffee as the two of us wait in silence for the large truck and the men. When the truck arrives, a burlap bag is placed over our heads and drives to an airstrip. The bags come off just as a large cargo plane touches down over the flora and fauna of the rain forest. Sometimes Chip is there but most days he’s nowhere to be found as Isabel and I are in charge of monitoring the unloading process. The plane emptied and the inventory accounted for, we’re blindfolded again, back to Rio, where the truckdriver takes us to the various drop zones. We continue to oversee the men, loading up all of the hot carts we own with curly fries and fresh-ish meats to sell throughout their respective territories. After that it’s around 9 am and time for breakfast…a nice spread at the small café down the road from our place…we take up our own cart a short time later.

Indeed, we were doing great things…not only in Brazil, but also back home, where I still could not return because of the whole extradition thing with Ping and Warren Wagglestein, Esq. Instead, we gave a bulk of our money to philanthropic causes back in Rockville and the DC suburbs. We started by making Chip’s brother Barry the head of our foundation, the Native Washingtonian Association. We had a lot of causes during this time, restoring the cafeteria at the Ring House was Chip’s pet project, as his mother was still there and he got a year’s rent free on account of the remodel. For me, it was two vanity projects. The first was the Danny Gatton Guitar School, a big honkin’ grant given to Montgomery College to teach inner city kids from Southern Rockville how to play smooth rockabilly. The second project was more ambitious. The NWA soup kitchen was created to mentor Washington’s next generation of soup masters. We endowed an entire school for the thing, out in Olney dedicated to the culinary arts of broth and balls. My hope…to one day recreate the BJ Pumpernickel’s establishment that Shirely Povich, Sr. had so dearly loved.

Even with NWA going great, I guess there’s a part of me that knew it couldn’t last. Chip and I were always getting into fights over petty stuff. Like when we ran out of imported meat from America and Ever had a burger made out of jaguar? All the Horsey Sauce in the world can’t do it justice. Believe me.

One day, I got fed up with it all.

“Chip, the product is getting worse. You can’t cut beef meat with jaguar and expect to get repeat customers.”

“They’re fuckin’ Brazilians, Surely. Besides, our profit margins have never been higher. What do you care?”

“We’re decimating the population of an endangered species.”

“We’re sourcing locally and reducing our carbon footprint. Isn’t that what you lib yahoos are all about these days?”

A Jaguar lookin’ regal on the Brazilian Fifty Dollar Bill. We fed their meat to people after the demand became too large for our supply chain of week-old beef comin’ from the United States. Members of the Social Christian party loved the idea back in 2016. Swell guys.

I shrugged. At the end of the day, I was only a minority partner in the business. Chip was holding all the cards. And maybe he was even right about the thing. We were paying Arby’s for all this imported meat that had to travel thousands of miles to get here. That’s jet fuel and a pilot you have to pay for. If you just kill a jaguar, you only have to pay the hunter…and the reserve is only a hop, skip, and jump from downtown Rio. Besides, the kids were learning guitar in Bethesda. And more importantly, the soup was flowing out there in Olney.

Or was it? Even though I couldn’t get back to the States, I still managed to get updates from Chip’s brother from time to time. A few months after we opened the schools, Barry Rosenbaum came down to Brazil to meet with his brother. But first, he showed me a video of two of the kids at the guitar school.

“Classic Gatton,” I recognized, marveling at the young ingenues, soloing away on a pair of Fender Telecasters.

“And that’s not all,” said Barry, taking out a thing of Tupperware and placing it on the table. I recognized it instantly, matzoh ball soup straight outta the NWA kitchen. “Whaddya say, Surely…you got a stove?”

I jumped at the chance. All those months of tinkering, could it really be? Did we really perfect the BJ Pumpernickel’s recipe? Sure, Barry’s goons had paid off the previous owners for the world-famous recipe, but who’s to say if they gave us the real deal. With much anticipation, I lit the gas burner and set it to low, so that the icy block of soup would slowly revert to a beautiful, golden hue. I began to salivate.

Chip came in just then.

“Moment of truth, Surely,” he said. “What’re you waiting for?”

I ladled out the soup for the three of us.

“Gentlemen, I propose a toast,” I said. “To my old friend Chip, without whom, none of this would be possible.”

“Here! Here!” said Barry.

“Here goes nothin,” I said, diving in. Slowly I brought the spoon to my face. The broth was on point, thick but not too thick, and full of rich schmaltz…now for the balls…

“You backstabbing, lying, sack of shit,” I said, dropping the spoon.

“What?”

“Don’t play fucking coy with me, fuckface,” I said. I removed a pistol from my gray sweat shorts and pointed it at Barry Rosenbaum’s head.

“Surely, what the fuck?!”

“Both you and I know…these aren’t the Pumpernickel’s balls. “First the jaguar meat and now this…just what the hell kinda trick you think you’re trying to pull here, Chip?”

The look on Chip’s face faded from disbelief to that of a large grin. “Well, well, well,” he said, clapping his hands, “and here I thought you were nothing but muscle.”

So everything was a lie? In a moment it dawned on me.

“This is the Hofberg’s matzoh soup,” I recognized, almost choking on the words. “Chip, how could you?”

“It’s better…it’s always been better. I mean, BJ Pumpernickel’s…are you fucking kidding me, Surely. Do you know BJ Pumpernickel was not even a real person? Now Abe Hofberg….shit, that was a soupmaster you could set your watch to.”

“You disgust me,” I said, cutting the inferior ball with the side of my spoon. “My father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew the kids at our soup school were learning the Hofberg’s recipe. For goddsakes, he’d rather them learn the Silver Diner matzoh ball than the shit they made over there.”

“The Silver Diner never made matzoh ball soup. It’s a figment of your fucking imagination.”

“They did too. In the spring of ’78…you had gone to some special basketball camp because you were a bigshot athlete…I stayed in Rockville and had a barback gig at the Bethesda Yacht Club. Every morning, I’d kick a new gurly outta bed and head over to Silver Diner for a cup of the stuff. It was the greatest summer of my life.”

This stuff is on par with Hofberg’s, if you ask me.

“The same summer you fucked Sherri Epstein, right Surely? My girlfriend. Hey, no hard feelings pal…I know you weren’t…Sherri told me all about it. Besides, even if you wanted Pumpernickel’s soup, you couldn’t get it…only Barry has the recipe, and it’s all the way back in Olney, where you can’t go because of you owe for your biological son. Face it, Surely, those kids are going to learn the Hofberg’s soup backwards and forwards…and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it…tell you what though, anytime you want a container of the stuff, I’ll have Barry bring it down for you whenever you want. Sound good?”

Smelling defeat, I lowered the gun from Chip’s brother’s temple. “From here on out, we’re not friends anymore…only partners.”

“Fine by me,” said Chip, ladling himself another round. “Not such a Mighty Mo now, are ya?”

I walk out and back to Isabel’s feeling worse than I had ever felt in my entire sixty-seven years. I had lost.

The next morning Isabel and I wake up for work. Same routine. The truck comes to our place and the two of us greet the two burlap bags that are placed over our heads. The truck starts up and starts to drive. Wrong direction. Gone are the sounds of the rainforest and the secret airstrip, with its black market planes and illicit cargo. Instead, we’re brought inside some kind of abandoned office building—through the blindfold, I make out the scant outlines of an old microfiche reader—we’re inside an old newsroom! Before I can break free and steal ancient office supplies, we’re ushered into a small enclosure with a familiar chemical smell I recognize must be the paper’s dark room. I can tell Isabel is scared but I tell her not to worry as the blindfolds come off.

“Surely…Povich…Jr.”

“Hello Trevor.”

Stay tuned for Part IV of my amazing Amazonian adventure!

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Is Robert Covington Good at Defense?

I promised this story last week, so here goes.

The premise is this:

We know that Robert Covington is a streaky shooter, a “3 and D” guy who sometimes drops fireballs from deep, but goes cold more often than not. When he’s on, he’s really on. And when he’s off, he’s really off.

That stuff is easy to identify. It’s easy for us to sit here and say, “well, Cov had 5 points last night after putting up 22 the previous night.” People bitch and whine and say he’s not performing to the level of his new contract, which results in we, the media, usually justifying his minutes with something like this:

“Well, Covington is the team’s best defender. He guards the opponent’s best player and performs well in that phase of the game, which is why Brett Brown trusts him.”

It’s so simple to parse and quantify offensive basketball data to frame a narrative, but it’s a lot harder with defensive basketball. The data doesn’t tell nearly as much of the story. You simply have to dig into the film and use your eyes to make observations and draw conclusions, the ‘ole “eye test” that college basketball pundits love to use in March. It’s a polite way of saying, “you simply didn’t watch enough games.”

We’re gonna do that with Covington. I want to pull some clips to show the things he does well, and not so well, on the defensive end of the floor.

First, let’s take a brief look at some of the numbers that DO matter without going too deep into advanced metrics.

Steals

Covington is 15th in the NBA with 1.59 steals per game. Ben Simmons leads the Sixers with 1.69 SPG.

When you extrapolate the numbers per-48 minute shifts, this is how the Sixers look:

T.J. McConnell – 2.71 SPG

Covington – 2.37 SPG

Simmons – 2.35 SPG

All three are top-30 NBA players in this category, though you see how effective T.J. is projected to be if all three of those guys played the same amount of minutes.

One area where Covington sags a bit is steals per personal fouls, where he falls into a 57th-place tie with a 0.54 number. That basically means he commits two fouls for each steal, which could be a result of a number of things.

That leads into our next category.

Deflections

Cov is more aggressive than most defenders. He gets his hands into passing lanes and will poke at the ball and try to turn you over.

To that end, he’s 2nd in the NBA with 3.9 deflections per game. Only Paul George has a better number at 4.1. Per 48, he would put up 5.8 deflections per game, leading all NBA starters.

Common knowledge says that the more you reach for the ball, the more likely you are to commit fouls, which is why Covington’s steals to personal fouls ratio is low.

Defensive Rating

A metric that determines how many points you allow per 100 possessions.

As a team, the Sixers are 5th best in the NBA at 103.1.

Individually, Joel Embiid has the best Philly mark at 100.2. Covington is right behind him at 101.1, placed just ahead of guys like Andre Iguodala, Justise Winslow, and Draymond Green on the league-wide charts.

Simmons logs a 102.6 DEFRTG while JJ Redick lands at 103.4 and Dario Saric is at 104.5.

To the Video

Alright, so the basic numbers say that Cov has a pretty solid defensive rating, steals and deflects at a high level, but fouls a lot and can sometimes be over-aggressive.

I went back to a few games to see what I could find.

One of the things to keep in mind is that the Sixers do a lot of switching on defense, more than most NBA teams. For that reason, Covington usually starts on the opponent’s best player, but draws a variety of matchups as the Sixers rely on their athleticism and don’t often find themselves in lopsided mismatches. I can’t stress that enough; he really is asked to do a lot of different things on any given night.

A play like this is typical:

There you’ve got Covington on Dwyane Wade, but he switches onto Wayne Ellington to deny the catch and shoot three-pointer.

When Ellington ducks underneath and tries to free Wade, Covington blocks the passing lane and Kelly Olynyk decides to take Dario Saric to the rim instead:

Roco does a good job at switching early, getting his hands up, and using his length to block passing lanes and deny easy distribution. He’s really not the fastest guy out there. He doesn’t possess amazing foot speed and he’s not going to lock down defenders 1v1 necessarily. What he does is switch fluidly and uses his wingspan to complicate things for opponents. There are a lot of off-ball things he does that go unnoticed.

To that point, when you watch him defend pick and rolls, there will be some times where he looks like he’s being screened into oblivion:

It’s a middle pick and roll with Wade and Bam Adebayo. Covington looks a step slow on the play, but he actually does a nice job of hooking that right arm and using leverage to turn with the bigger roller and stay with his man.

Embiid, then, is athletic enough to “zone” the screen and engage Wade at the foul line, forcing him into a contested fadeaway:

That’s a tough shot, and I think you’d be satisfied with forcing an opponent into that look on most occasions. D-Wade is a special player, especially in the 4th quarter.

Sometimes it’s a little messy, though, and Covington will find himself trailing the roller when overplaying the screen:

This sequence starts with Covington switching onto Wade, who sets up a middle pick and roll with Hassan Whiteside. Wade doesn’t get him the first time, but Cov tops the second screen and finds himself turned around. He grabs Whiteside to slow him down and the refs miss the foul, but Amir Johnson does a nice job of sliding over to Wade and forcing the turnover.

Obviously Joel Embiid is a better PnR defender than Johnson, but Covington usually stays in front and likes to defend the three point line. I don’t see a lot of instances where he goes under the screen, and that’s not a bad way to approach these scenarios when you have a rim protector like Embiid right behind you.

One more play from the Miami loss, a possession that begins with Ersan Ilyasova on the wrong man and Covington defending the perimeter 1v2:

Roco is on Tyler Johnson this time, and goes over two James Johnson screens to deny the three pointer. Ilyasova eventually comes into the play and the first Johnson hits a 21-foot jump shot.

That’s fine. You can live with that. It’s the lowest-efficiency shot in basketball. It’s similar to the Wade fadeaway, which isn’t the best look on the planet. This is a broken defensive play and Covington does a nice job to prevent a three-point look and get Miami to settle for a long two instead.

Last Tuesday, Covington started on Nicolas Batum, then guarded Kemba Walker when JJ Redick came off the floor in Charlotte. Walker finished with 5 points on 1-9 shooting in a 14-point home loss to the Sixers.

I thought he did well here to get through a baseline screen to stick with Batum on the low block:

Charlotte tries to free up Dwight Howard with a second screen, but good job by Covington, Embiid, and Redick to choke the space and keep their hands up. Batum tries to take it himself and settles for a tough-angle shot after Covington pins him down near the baseline.

Earlier, this play jumped out to me:

Steve Clifford sets up a a curl for Walker with two screens and Covington does a really nice job of skirting Marvin Williams and Howard to get a hand on the shot. That’s all reach right there, with Cov using those long arms to get up and challenge a shot that I thought he would be nowhere near.

Again, when it looks like he’s beat, he usually finds his way back into the play.

Some clips now from Tuesday night, when Covington spent most of his time on Victor Oladipo, who finished 4-21 from the floor.

Really nice defense here:

He fights through the Myles Turner down screen and sticks to Oladipo on the perimeter. Even when Oladipo creates some separation with a slight right arm shrug, Covington does a nice job to keep his hands up and contest the shot.

Airball.

This was one of the few things Oladipo did all night:

You see Redick “hedge” the screen and get out in front, then Indiana resets and brings Trevor Booker into the pick and roll. But Oladipo takes it himself and gets Covington with a beautiful crossover and step back.

Sometimes you just have to give credit to the offensive player when they make plays like that. Most people on the planet aren’t defending that.

And finally, we’ll wrap it up on a high note, a play that Alaa Abdelnaby half-explained last night, which I’ll expand on:

That’s brilliant stuff.

What you have here is a “pre-switch,” which Covington does twice in once sequence.

Indiana is trying to set a Turner screen on T.J. McConnell to get Darren Collison onto Joel Embiid. Covington sees that and so he takes Turner instead.

Make sense? You wouldn’t switch Collison onto Covington, because there’s no mismatch there. They wanted Embiid.

Instead, Indiana tries it from the other side and brings Thad Young to the arc to try to switch Ilyasova, but Covington sees that, too, and pre-switches there:

Collison ends up driving on Cov, who blocks his shot.

Just high-IQ stuff right there.

Conclusion

Is Robert Covington good at defense?

I think so, but we waste a lot of time looking at it the wrong way.

Cov is a 6’9″ guy with great reach and active hands. He disrupts passing lanes, steals the ball, and deflects it. He’s versatile enough to switch onto both smaller and bigger guys and plays a somewhat aggressive game that places trust in Joel Embiid and Amir Johnson to cover behind him. His strengths, I think, are seen much more off the ball, and not so much in on-ball situations.

No, Covington doesn’t have the best feet or the quickest lateral movement. Sometimes he gets lost in screens and can’t recover. He’s not a lockdown, 1v1 defender, and I think that’s how people are judging him. I often hear about dribblers “blowing by” Covington as a main criticism, which I think is overdone. If you’re looking for Bruce Bowen or Gary Payton, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Collectively, this starting group has one of the best defensive ratings in the NBA, and when you take the parts and put them together, you’re got an incredibly efficient unit out there. Covington is a big part of that for reasons that might not be so obvious.

Is Robert Covington Good at Defense? published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years

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FOR EXAMPLE, ANY WORK OF ART THAT DOES ITS JOB WELL, DOESN'T REQUIRE YOU TO PICK OUT A FEW INDIVIDUALS AND LABEL THEIR OPINIONS AS CORRECT

A company that could pay all its employees so straightforwardly would be enormously successful. But regardless of whether patents are in general, and partly because they're not tied to geography. I give ends up being given from a manuscript full of things crossed out and rewritten. And that, I think, is that if someone is wise, all you have to endure a million dollars' worth of pain. And yet, mysteriously, Viaweb ended up crushing all its competitors. Being smart seems to make you unpopular. Imagine what it would take to create a startup hub, unexpected good things will probably happen to you, especially if no one else at the time, I would have been obvious to someone who knew more about speaking, but it could be any other way? The engineers build a reliable gadget with all kinds of new features; the industrial designers design a beautiful case for it; but there was still that Apple coolness in the air, that feeling that the show was being run by someone who was not merely a better speaker than me, but a mosquito is designed for one thing: to score. I never tried to turn it into one. It's not enough to make it, there are a lot of classes there might only be 20 or 30 ideas that were the right shape to make good exam questions. A song on an LP is physically stamped into the plastic. And although the super-angels, the most decisive of whom sometimes decide in hours.

As with contrarian investment strategies, that's exactly the point. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can, so you need a lot of money for them, and the FBI found that their usual investigative technique didn't work. Actually, I've noticed this too. A year ago I noticed a pattern among the most valuable features. He thought perhaps he needed a little dose of sociopath-ness. If a post has a linkbait title, editors sometimes rephrase it to be a harder problem than bad submissions. When groups of adults form in the real world and the cocoon they grew up in. Having a heart attack sounded like falling asleep. But the usual way startups take off is for the founders to make them easy to learn. It's basically the diminutive form of belligerent.

There are plenty of other ways to get money, including chance, speculation, marriage, inheritance, theft, extortion, fraud, monopoly, graft, lobbying, counterfeiting, and prospecting. But I would like to be swept off their feet by a vigorous stream of words. People need to feel that what they create can't be stolen. Adults in prison certainly pick on one another. And yet the authorities still for the most part they punt. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we called the Segwell. If the iPad had come first, we wouldn't think of the iPhone as a phone; we'd think of it as a painting is drowned out. He has since relaxed a bit on that point.

Like a lot of new areas. The first, obviously, is that the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time should be the ideas expressed there. But I don't know what it means to be biased against applicants of type x have to be small? But that's not the same as the cause of so many present ills: specialization. When I walked into the Apple store in Cambridge, it was harder. These guys are not the same thing as money. What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia was not that they were experts in technology. People's preferences aren't random. We talked about YC all the time. They just need something to chase. The seriousness of signalling risk depends on how well they do against opponents, not on whether they can push the other down.

How tech-saturated Silicon Valley is. In the case of Viaweb, the simple solution was to make the trade into a two-step process. If you don't know anything about, say, the ages of eleven and seventeen. I seem to have an answer or they'll look bad. Freaks were on the whole smarter than other kids, though never studying or at least never appearing to was an important tribal value. Starting a startup is like a sort of monster of productivity. I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. Now people are saying the same things you'd do if you just follow your own inclinations. But when he rides the Segwell, they shout abuse from their cars: Too lazy to walk, ya fuckin homo? There was another speaker who was much better than me. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed but on balance, created for all of human history it has not even been the most common mistakes young founders make is not to be an all-or-nothing proposition.

When the things you do have real effects. Later when things blow up they say I knew there was something off about him, but I think a society in which people can do and say what they want will also tend to be outliers. And then on a random suburban street in Palo Alto you happen to run into Sean Parker, who understands the domain really well because he started a similar startup himself, and also knows all the investors in it are angels; it just describes the structure of the round. There are three reasons. That's an extreme example, of course, is OS X. He now runs a hedge fund, a not unrelated enterprise. Culture is important in any organization, it's critical for startups.

There are sources of error in your own judgements. If you wanted to create a startup hub, unexpected good things will probably happen to you, especially if you deserve them. Bill Gates will of course come to mind. A few months ago an article about Y Combinator said that early on it had been a private home. The all-or-nothing aspect of startups was not something we wanted. By giving him something he wants in return. This is the sort of company that competes by litigation rather than by making good products. What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia was not that they were experts in technology. The reason, of course; when parents do that sort of thing it becomes national news.

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junker-town · 7 years

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4 winners and 4 losers from the 2017 NHL free agent frenzy

As the dust settles from a busy Saturday, here are some winners and losers from NHL free agency.

The first few hours of NHL free agency gave us the wild rush of signings that we expected as teams inked the top players from the open market. Kevin Shattenkirk joined the Rangers, Joe Thornton stuck with the Sharks, and Karl Alzner swapped out D.C. for Montreal, among others.

There weren’t any true game-changers on the open market like a Connor McDavid or Erik Karlsson, but it was still a big day for shaping next season’s rosters. There were dozens upon dozens of signings, and more are still to come with players like Alexander Radulov, Andrei Markov, and Patrick Marleau available.

It’ll take time before we can accurately assess all of the moves made on Saturday afternoon, but it’s fair to say that some came away better than others from the initial free agent frenzy. For example, New York limiting Shattenkirk’s contract to four years is a coup when other prominent names have pushed for much lengthier terms.

Saturday was a big day for the hockey world. Here’s a look at some of the winners and losers from the past few hours.

WINNERS

Rangers

New York didn’t just land the No. 1 defenseman on the market. The team got a nice break by limiting Kevin Shattenkirk’s deal to four years, so he’ll be just 33 years old when it’s over.

The $6.65 million cap hit is on the high side, but it seems like the Rangers might’ve gotten to that number in exchange for lower term. When you see guys in their early 30s like Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Brent Seabrook getting eight-year extensions, it’s a massive win to be able to lock in a 28-year-old Shattenkirk for half of that.

Now the Rangers have put together a defense that could really impress next season. With Dan Girardi out of the picture and Shattenkirk in, New York can now rock a top four of Shattenkirk, Ryan McDonagh, Brady Skjei, and Brendan Smith next season. That leaves Marc Staal, Kevin Klein, Nick Holden, and Anthony DeAngelo as options for the final pairing.

New York may lack star power with its forwards, but this defense and Henrik Lundqvist won’t be easy to take on.

Mid-tier veteran defensemen

What is it about these guys that makes teams salivate at throwing money at them? Karl Alzner got five years and $23.2 million from Montreal. Dmitry Kulikov got three years and almost $13 million from Winnipeg. Dan Girardi, right after being bought out of his last contract, got two years and $6 million from Tampa Bay.

The list of mid-tier veteran defensemen getting multi-year deals on Saturday is staggering. Beyond those three, there’s also Ron Hainsey (Maple Leafs), Trevor Daley (Red Wings), Matt Hunwick (Penguins), and Michael Del Zotto (Canucks). An exception would be Kyle Quincey, who settled for a one-year deal with the Wild.

Not that all of those signings are equally questionable, but it’s clear that NHL GMs put a premium on these kinds of players, even though they don’t necessarily deserve these kinds of commitments. Compare it to guys like Patrick Sharp, Mike Cammalleri, Radim Vrbata, Chris Thorburn, Beau Bennett, and Dominic Moore, potentially useful forwards who all took cheap one-year deals.

If you’re hitting NHL free agency, it’s good to be a veteran defenseman.

Sharks

Joe Thornton is back in San Jose, and the team got him on a reasonable one-year deal that limits risk. That was the team’s lone notable free agent signing of the day, but they also inked defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and goalie Martin Jones to massive long-term extensions going into effect in 2018-19.

By having Thornton on a one-year deal, San Jose won’t have to sweat nearly as much about the big raises going toward Vlasic and Jones next year, when their combined cap hits jump from $7.25 million to $12.75 million. Removing Thornton’s cap hit alone would cover the increase, so the Sharks maintain some flexibility for next season.

And in the meantime, Thornton is back to help try to finally win a Stanley Cup in San Jose. Even if the Sharks ultimately lose Patrick Marleau, who remains a free agent, it was smart to re-sign Jumbo.

Brent Burns agrees:

So pumped to read I get to see this guy every morning again! Special player obviously but the best guy to be around!! http://pic.twitter.com/Zm89ULOwPo

— Brent Burns (@Burnzie88) July 1, 2017

Players returning home, or “home”

Whether it was a beloved star returning to his former team or a player going back to his hometown, there were a lot of reunions Saturday. The Blackhawks got a taste of both by bringing back winger Patrick Sharp on a bargain deal worth up to $1 million and adding Wilmette, Ill., native Tommy Wingels, who grew up just minutes outside Chicago.

That’s not all.

Kevin Shattenkirk took less money to sign with his hometown Rangers, and said playing in New York “fulfills a lifelong dream” for the defenseman. Justin Williams returned to Carolina, where he won a Stanley Cup in 2006, after eight seasons elsewhere. Scott Harnell and Anders Lindback are back in Nashville. Evgeny Dadonov in Florida, Mike Cammalleri in Los Angeles, and so on.

Sometimes returning home isn’t easy. On Saturday, a whole bunch of players did.

LOSERS

Lightning

Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman is often considered one of the best in the league, but he made some questionable decisions on Saturday. For a team trying to push its way back to contender status, it’s hard to see guys like Dan Girardi and Chris Kunitz moving the needle much.

Girardi may have a good reputation in some league circles, but his statistics have been brutal for years. Last season, the Rangers posted a 44 percent even strength Corsi with him on the ice, down from 49.5 percent without him. It’s a similar pattern for his whole career, with New York regularly posting better possession when Girardi is on the bench.

The Rangers bought him out of his contract for a reason, and it’s because he’s not all that effective. And yet, the Lightning decided to give him $3 million annually for two years.

Kunitz brings championship experience to Tampa Bay, having won three Stanley Cups with the Penguins, but he’s also coming off the worst season of his career and turns 38 years old in September. Maybe there’s still something left in the tank.

This is a team that missed the playoffs last season while struggling through injuries and already lost one of its best players in Jonathan Drouin this summer. With $5 million, you’d think they’d get more than Girardi and Kunitz.

The Canucks’ lottery odds next season

Vancouver almost certainly won’t be a contender until it can add more elite talent, and its best chance of doing that soon will be landing the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft. Then the team could select defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, who has been so ridiculously good as a teenager that he could be the rare blue liner worth the top selection.

With that in mind, it was a little curious to see the Canucks go out to sign veterans Sam Gagner, Michael Del Zotto, and Anders Nilsson to multi-year contracts. Not that any of the deals are particularly egregious, but if the team is aiming at the No. 1 pick next year, these moves could hurt their chances of finishing last in the league and getting top lottery odds.

As we learned this year, winning the lottery doesn’t always work out for the worst team (sorry Avs), but these are minor moves that could push Vancouver’s lottery odds lower without getting them any closer to meaningful success. It’s hard to see exactly what the direction is for the Canucks right now.

Panthers

Yes, they signed Radim Vrbata and Egveny Dadonov, adding a nice heaping dose of offensive talent to the lineup for next season. But then Paul Bissonnette revealed an uncomfortable truth that could destroy the Panthers’ locker room:

Great guy, true professional, awesome teammate. Only negative is he likes the show The Big Bang Theory. https://t.co/6BHr2RHK7e

— Paul Bissonnette (@BizNasty2point0) July 1, 2017

Bazinga!

Anyone hoping the Devils would make a splash

No team in the NHL entered free agency on Saturday with more cap space than New Jersey. The team had just 28 players under contract, so it came into the day with over $25 million in salary cap space.

Maybe Devils GM Ray Shero is trying to be forward-thinking by avoiding any bad contracts that could be headaches in the future, but how does a team in that situation come away from the free agent frenzy with just a single signing of a bottom six forward?

Getting Brian Boyle for two years and $5.1 million was actually a nice get for the Devils. He’s big, can score goals, and adds depth to a team badly in need of it. But what comes next? New Jersey has just seven forwards, five defensemen, and two goalies on its NHL roster now.

Maybe they’ll call up a bunch of prospects and it’ll work out on the cheap, so everyone wins, but it was surprising that the Devils weren’t really players given how much cap space they have.

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